Michael Arthur Newdow is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 attorney and emergency medicine

Emergency medicine

Emergency medicine is a medical specialty in which physicians care for patients with acute illnesses or injuries which require immediate medical attention. While not usually providing long-term or continuing care, emergency medicine physicians diagnose a variety of illnesses and undertake acute...

 physician

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

. He is best known for his efforts to have recitations of the current version of the Pledge of Allegiance

Pledge of Allegiance

The Pledge of Allegiance of the United States is an expression of loyalty to the federal flag and the republic of the United States of America, originally composed by Christian Socialist Francis Bellamy in 1892 and formally adopted by Congress as the pledge in 1942...

 in public schools in the United States declared unconstitutional because of its inclusion of the phrase "under God". He also filed and lost a lawsuit to stop the invocation prayer at President Bush's second inauguration and, most recently, he filed a lawsuit to prevent references to God and religion from being part of President Obama's inauguration.

Newdow is an atheist

Atheism

Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...

 and an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church

Universal Life Church

The Universal Life Church is a religious organization that offers anyone semi-immediate ordination as a ULC minister free of charge. The organization states that anyone can become a minister immediately, without having to go through the pre-ordination process required by other religious faiths...

.